Good afternoon once again, everyone. I'm Dan Moore, Director of Research at CJS Securities, and welcome once again to our 25th annual New Ideas for the New Year Conference. Our latest new idea and our next presentation is McGrath RentCorp. I think it's likely fair to say that six months ago, management of McGrath probably wouldn't have anticipated being at this conference, but nonetheless, it's our gain. We're very excited about the business, the opportunity ahead, and we're really happy to have them with us today. It's my pleasure to introduce Joe Hanna, President and Chief Executive Officer, as well as Keith Pratt, EVP and Chief Financial Officer. We'll start with a brief 10- to 15-minute update and overview from management. Following that, I'll host some Q&A. Again, as always, please feel free to submit any questions you have through the portal.
We'll do our best to get them covered. With that, Joe, Keith, thank you very much for being here and taking the time today.
All right, Dan, thank you very much. Appreciate the introduction. My name once again is Joe Hanna, and what I will do is cover briefly some background on the company, and then Keith will cover in more detail our financial results and information. So we are pleased to be here and ready to go. Just real quick, this presentation contains forward-looking statements. They're not a guarantee of future performance and can involve risk and uncertainties that cause our results to differ materially. Please refer to our risk factors as disclosed in our Form 10-K and other public filings. All right. So McGrath is a B2B rental company. We have a very long track record of serving our customers with an exceptional experience.
Over the years, we have had, we've been very shareholder focused and delivered a 17% compound annual growth rate on shareholder returns, along with 33 years of consecutive dividend increases, which is very rare for a company like us. We are a leader in North America in the business segments that we operate in, and I will describe them now for you in greater detail. First thing, let's just take a look at the revenue spread that we have in the company between our operating divisions. We have three segments. One in orange is Mobile Modular. Portable storage is purple, and our TRS electronics business is the green segment. Both Mobile Modular and Portable Storage make up over 80% of our revenues and EBITDA, and they have been a strategic investment area for the company over the last five years.
I'll get into more detail on each of these segments. Looking first at Mobile Modular, the business rents and sells modular buildings for commercial applications. What I mean by commercial is it is not residential. We operate primarily in two segments that support our Education business and our Commercial business. Let me just give you a perspective on what may happen when we undergo a project for an education customer. Imagine yourself as a facilities director at a school district that has 50,000 students, which is very realistic. Your voters in the local municipality have just passed a $100 million bond to modernize your schools in your district. You have 20 sites that you want to modernize, and you need to be able to house students on a temporary basis as you go through this modernization project.
It's a large project, and it requires a lot of coordination. What do you do as a facilities director? You call Mobile Modular. And what we do is we provide the product, the expertise, and all of the service required to deliver these buildings on time and in a favorable environment for students to learn in on a temporary basis as their school is being modernized, which could be a 12, sometimes a 24-month project. That's an example of the type of project that we do for our education customers. Not only do we do modernization, we also do growth for either shifting student populations or in districts where they cannot keep up with housing students because they are growing at too fast a rate. On the commercial side, let me describe to you another type of project.
Imagine that you are Microsoft and you're going to put in a data center. You need to hire a construction company. That construction company may have 50 people on site for a two-year project, and those people need to be housed in a building. You need 3,000 sq ft, and you need a conference room. You need some offices. You need a break room. You call Mobile Modular, and we can configure that building to exactly what specifications you need to be able to have the construction company be able to operate successfully in that environment. And literally, you go from a lot, an empty lot, to having a building installed and up and ready to use in a matter of days.
These are the types of projects that we excel in, and we have facilities in very specific regions of the country that support these types of projects. We are a, we consider ourselves number two in the industry, and we have reach on a variety of different geographies, primarily in the southern part of the country, California, Texas, Florida, and up the Mid-Atlantic coast is our primary coverage area. We operate there with a high degree of repeat customer business. Okay, let's turn to our Portable Storage business. Let's go back to the data center again. The data center has a number of different contractors that come in, and they need to store sensitive electronic equipment in a safe place on site.
And so they will call us, and we will provide storage equipment in the form of containers to be able to have on site that are secure. And these are used by these folks to store their equipment during the project. Not only do we provide for storage, but we also provide room for offices, ground-level offices that can be brought in on the back of a truck, unloaded, and set up in a matter of hours for the particular customer to be able to operate in. We have a fairly large fleet. This is a younger business for us. We started it back in 2008. We've grown very nicely organically, and we have a lot of area for growth that we can continue to densify in locations we're in or spread to new locations throughout the country.
Let me just share with you the excitement that we have in some of the growth opportunities for the business. It's a large market, modular buildings. As modular construction is more and more accepted as a viable way to provide space to folks throughout the country, it is becoming a larger portion of the construction market, and we are very well positioned to be able to take advantage of that thought process and growing acceptance of using modular buildings for space needs. We have a leading position in our education rental business. We're very proficient. We have the infrastructure. We've got the expertise through many, many years of doing this to provide a high-level service to our customers. In terms of our ability to be able to expand the business, as I mentioned, we consider ourselves a super regional player.
We have executed two significant acquisitions over the past years, beginning in 2021, that have offered us a footprint to be able to grow the business in other areas of the country. As an example, in the western part of the United States, we purchased a competitor there that had a certain amount of market share, but we are able to grow our business based on the locations that we were able to purchase in that acquisition. And so that provides us additional growth avenues for us to get into new markets. One of the things that's been very favorable over the past years is our pricing dynamics. Due to the inflationary period that we just went through, we have had to increase pricing to preserve margins. And that has provided a very nice opportunity for us.
As the fleet comes off rent, there is a difference between the pricing that we realize from units on rent now and the price that we are charging for new rentals as they go out the door. And as the fleet churns over time, this pricing dynamic is a positive tailwind for us as we put these units out at higher pricing. So we've got a multi-year tailwind there. One of the things that we've focused on is growing our share of the modular business in terms of offering more of a solution to our customers. And so as a way to do that, not only are we now providing the building, but we are providing services in addition to the building.
Mobile Modular Plus is putting offerings inside the building, such as furniture and other ancillary rental packages, a coffee maker, a TV, something like that that the customer may want in the building. We're providing those for customers now. Our Site Related Services are typically things that are outside the building, which could be a covered walkway or a walkway or hooking up to electrical connections or plumbing connections. And we offer that as a turnkey opportunity to have a very good experience when the customer rents the building. And thirdly, our Custom Modular Solutions cover large turnkey projects throughout different locations in the U.S. And to give you an example there, in the third quarter, we closed a very large project in South Carolina that was for 60 floors for just one elementary school.
Not only did we sell that building to the school district, but we also provided a very nice amount of those Site Related Services that I just described in setting up the building and providing walkways and covered canopies and ramps and stairs for the customer in that application. We are very excited about these opportunities to continue to grow based on these things that I just reviewed with you here. All right. Let me turn to our TRS business, which is our electronic test and measurement business. Again, I'll go back to the data center. The data center has a massive amount, a history of data that is going to be coming in and out of that facility. What Microsoft will do is they will hire a contractor that will lay fiber optic cable.
It's very important that that cabling is tested and installed properly so that the data transfers can take place in the most efficient way and in the most accurate way. This contractor will come to us, and they will rent the product that they need to be able to fulfill their contractual obligations and install the fiber optic cable. TRS rents that business. We do that on a national basis through a facility that we have in Dallas. We have a very large product line that we have to support those customers. We are a market leader in this business. We know it very well. It's a very good cash generator for us. We really enjoy running this business. That's why we have it in the portfolio.
Here is a little bit of more detail on the types of projects or the product that we have there. As I said, we are a market leader. There are a lot of different end markets that we support. We have a communications part of the business, and we also have a general purpose part of the business, which supports semiconductor and computer growth, aerospace and defense applications, and other R&D type applications that require measurement of electronic signals. This business has been a very good business for us, and the continued demand for bandwidth is never-ending, and we know that there will be a constant need for new technologies on a continuous basis, so we're very well positioned to be able to support that market, so that just concludes my brief description of the business.
I'll turn it over now to Keith, who will review our financial highlights.
Thank you, Joe. Welcome everyone to today's presentation. I'm going to hit some highlights. I'll start with some detail. First of all, on the third quarter that we reported in late October, you'll see here, if we look at the major categories for the third quarter, all the revenue streams increased. Total revenues for the third quarter up 10%. We'll look at how that was accomplished. First comment is rental revenue. It was up just 1%. One of the things we've seen over the course of 2024 was strength in modulars, which continued through the third quarter, but some demand market softness at electronics and at Portable Storage. Both of those businesses seeing declines in revenue for the third quarter, but offset by the strength in modulars. Next item, rental-related services.
Rental-related services was seasonally very strong in the third quarter, and it benefited from one of the modular initiatives that Joe described earlier. Those Site Related Services are included in this line item. And we had a very nice third quarter, which gave it a boost. And then sales were also up nicely in the third quarter. You'll see up 20%. The driver of that growth was really coming from the modular business and coming from those projects involving the sale of new modular units. And again, another initiative area for us in the modular business. And good to see that it's contributing to the overall McGrath success. So with that 10% growth in revenues, you'll see gross profit up nicely at 11% and Adjusted EBITDA for the quarter up 13%. So overall, a good quarter for the company.
The third quarter is typically a seasonally very strong quarter, both on the rental side of the business and on the sales side of the business. And we saw that this year. So very pleased with those results. If we look at the composition of the EBITDA growth, this next slide lets you get a divisional view of where the growth came from. You'll see at the bottom, McGrath overall results, adjusted EBITDA up 13%. Good results, as we commented. Modulars was really the driver. Very strong quarter for modulars, up 23%. And really a good example of all of the initiative areas working very well together. We saw growth in rents. It was balanced. We saw approximately 9% growth in rental revenues at mobile modular. And that showed good growth on the education side, up approximately 10%, and on the commercial side, up 8%. So quite balanced.
We also saw the contributions from all the initiatives that Joe described. We've got some more data on that in a minute. Our Mobile Modular Plus offering was up, Site Related Services up, and Custom Modular Solutions or sales of new equipment also up in the quarter. Very balanced contribution from all the areas that we're strategically focused on. If we look at Portable Storage, you'll see here that each quarter of 2024 has been a challenge from a profitability point of view. Q1, Q2, and Q3, you'll see sequentially some pressure on profitability. That is reflecting challenging demand conditions for the Portable Storage business. We did comment on the October call that we don't see that changing as we look at Q4. Obviously, we'll have our report card when we announce the fourth quarter results and give a full commentary on that.
TRS- RenTelco also has had difficult demand conditions throughout 2024. We see that in the first few quarters of the year. And for the third quarter, EBITDA down 10%. Taken as a whole, McGrath still delivered a very nice quarter. And again, strength at modulars, offsetting some weakness at Portable Storage and TRS- RenTelco. Just clicking into some of the topics that Joe touched on at the beginning. We believe we've got a pricing or revenue per unit tailwind that is significant and is expected to last the next few years. If you look on the left-hand chart, and there's a lot of detail that goes into this chart reflected in the footnote, but if you look at the left-hand chart, this is the average revenue per unit on rent for all the modular units in our fleet that are on rent.
There is an issue with when our Vesta acquisition was put into our systems. That happened in November of 2023. The left-hand chart is not completely apples to apples. If you account for the addition of Vesta, that's probably about a third of that 18% increase. On an apples to apples basis, probably closer to a 12% lift, but still very significant across the whole fleet on a per unit basis. If you look at one of the drivers of that, it's what Joe mentioned earlier, churning of the fleet and the fact that over the last few years, we've seen costs go up for new units, costs go up from maintaining our fleet. We have to charge more to protect our economics.
If you look at the right-hand chart, on an LTM basis, you'll see that new shipment pricing has also been increasing, and it's also well above the fleet average. That $1,191, which reflects the LTM most recent quarter of new shipment pricing, is well above the $820, which is the average unit on the fleet in terms of revenue per rent. Most of the change in these two charts is driven by changes to the base rental unit, but it gets a further lift from our success in delivering Mobile Modular Plus, which are those added services attached to the contract. Also showing some of the progress in Mobile Modular Plus as a discrete item. Joe described earlier the kinds of things we do. When we add things to the contract, it could be stairs and ramps. It could be sanitation-related or air purification systems.
Anything that we add to the contract that becomes part of the monthly revenue stream, that is what's reflected in these Mobile Modular Plus items. You'll see we've grown it over the last few years. It will continue to be a focus area that we want to grow as we move forward. Similarly, Site Related Services, doing more for the customer at the time the unit is installed. This is another strategic focus area for us, up nicely over the last three years. It was a very good contributor in the third quarter results that I mentioned. This is an area we want to continue to focus on and see growth. And again, it's adding more value for the customer. And then we talked about Mobile Modular sales. On the left-hand side, you'll see the full sales number year-to-date for the last two years.
You'll see in there that we routinely sell used equipment. That's a normal part of being in this business. Sometimes it's a customer who started off renting and then after a few years decide they want to own the unit permanently. So that can be one reason for used sales. Another reason for used sales is related to fleet management. If we decide in a particular region, we have units or too many units of a particular category, we may elect to sell some units as used equipment. So both those drivers drive that number. But you'll also see new sales are significant, both on the education side and on the commercial side, and increasingly, we've had a lot of focus in this area, as Joe described earlier, and up nicely by 15% year-to-date.
So just wrapping up, I really want to recap by saying what Joe described earlier in terms of each of our rental segments. These are very well-established rental businesses with very solid positions, high-quality customer base, many repeat customers in many very important markets around the country. In terms of the company's strategy, we worked a lot over the last few years on honing that strategy, really have made the focus strategic growth and investment around Mobile Modular and Portable Storage. And that became evident when in 2021, we made the Design Space acquisition, followed by 2023 with the Vesta acquisition and the Adler divestiture, and then a number of smaller Portable Storage tuck-in acquisitions. And that really is on top of a consistent long-term focus and success with organic investment in our businesses. When it comes to capital spending, we try to be very disciplined.
We're very focused on a healthy cash-on-cash return when we deploy capital. That is true for both new rental equipment investments and from strategic acquisitions. One of the characteristics of the rental business is a strong cash flow profile and a resilient business model. If you look at our performance, for example, during the pandemic in 2020, we actually had very strong cash flow. We throttled back on growth capital investment and maintained very healthy metrics in our profitability and overall financial health. One of the ways we return value to shareholders is through our dividend program. We're proud to have achieved 33 years of consecutive dividend increases. When you look at the company's financial profile, we've got a very solid financial foundation. It supports today's business, and it leaves us very well positioned for future growth.
So with that, I'll hand it back to Dan, and I think he's going to open it up for some Q&A.
Indeed, Joe and Keith, a very detailed and thorough overview and update. Greatly appreciated. One quick sort of generic question, and then we'll try to get into some more company-specific. But in terms of the new administration, when you sit back and think about all the things that we're hearing about from potential tariffs to potential immigration changes to DOGE, what are the things that really catch your eye and attention that you're thinking about, both from potential opportunity as well as maybe any risks on the near-term horizon?
Yeah, Dan, I can answer that. I think ultimately, I think what this administration is trying to do is to bring more jobs back to the U.S. and more manufacturing opportunities to the U.S.
And that's part of the tariff issue, I think, that is being contemplated here. So that for us is all good. And depending on how significant that effort is by the federal government, it could affect us in reshoring manufacturing. And that brings the needs for space, storage, all the things that I just described in my example about the data center or battery production, things like that, that semiconductor manufacturing, all those things are opportunities for us. So ultimately, we're positive. We'll have yet to see how it actually ends up transpiring. But the initial kind of cautious optimism on our part is indeed good.
Fantastic. Question we get from a lot of the folks since we've introduced the idea just recently. Talk about the relative health of the business after the nine-month period between when McGrath agreed to be acquired and when the deal fell through.
Any meaningful attrition in terms of personnel, investments, etc.?
Yeah. As I shared on our Q3 call, I thought it was very important to inform investors that we made it through that nine-month period and did not really lose momentum. I think I'm very, very pleased by how the company maintained focus on our strategy. We actually, in our leadership ranks, did not lose people at all. We lost kind of one director-level person out of a pretty large segment of the company there. So it was, I think, I was very pleased by how we came through. And we are not picking up the pieces. The company is not damaged. And we're ready to go. We're very excited about continuing to execute our strategy, which we followed very diligently through that period. So I'm very, very excited.
Excellent. I was going to ask a question about the pricing dynamics.
I think you covered those pretty well, Keith. But on the one hand, you have positive pricing dynamics. On the other, utilization has been ticking a little lower over the past couple of quarters. What can you say about your expectations for utilization, looking ahead to 2025 and levers you maybe are able to or can pull to protect it?
Sure. If you look at the modular utilization, so for the third quarter, the average utilization of the modular fleet was 77.1%. And that was down from a year earlier at 79.9%. I would say that modular utilization in the mid-70s or above is still very, very good. So just to put it in context, it's something we try to manage very carefully. Part of it is influenced by market demand. Part of it is choices we make on where to invest and if we make wise choices over time.
But one of the things we can do when utilization is a little softer is be very thoughtful about adding any new fleet. And maybe said another way, when our utilization drops a bit, we have fleet available to be put on rent. And that should be our primary focus. Sometimes we have to spend some operating expenses to get those units rental-ready for the next customer. But that's a wise investment. And it's less cash going out the door compared to buying new fleet. And that's something we'll be looking at as we go into 2025 and beyond. But those are really the things we think about. Look at utilization, be thoughtful on any new rental equipment CapEx, make the cash investment if we need to get units rental-ready. And that's part and parcel of how we run the business.
Perfect. Very helpful.
Question from one of the folks listening in. How much of the classroom rental business is in Southern California? I assume the implication here is in the L.A. area. And any way to frame the revenue opportunity from participating in helping the L.A. school districts as they scale operations back up? I know it's very early, but I thought I'd pass it along and just see how you're thinking about it.
Sure. Yeah, it's a question on a lot of folks' mind. We have a very large operation in Southern California, and we have a very strong relationship with the L.A. school district. And so we are already in communications with them. It is very early. And I think any opportunities that will be generated from this will take a while for them to materialize as really everybody tries to assess the damages that have taken place.
We have helped with fires that have occurred in other parts of the state in prior years. So I do believe that there will be an opportunity for us to help out.
Understood. Very helpful. And then in terms of sticking with the education side of the business, just take a step back. You gave a great example of one of the use cases or the key primary use case. What are the key drivers from a secular growth perspective? How much visibility do you have in that piece of your business? And how do we think about the TAM or market size over time?
Yeah, actually, our visibility in that part of the business is fairly good.
We know what areas of the country based on a lot of statistics that are maintained by school districts and municipalities and states in general on where populations are shifting and/or growing or even shrinking, right? So in California, you might look at the state and go, "Well, the student population is actually decreasing at this point." But actually, there's a lot of shifting that's going on from areas along the coast into the interior of the state. So we have a lot of needs right now for school districts in the Central Valley that are realizing student population growth because of those shifts that are taking place. It is probably the most predictable part of the business just for those reasons because those population shifts, they take time and move in relatively predictable ways. So that's been very helpful for us.
And then the modernization dynamic, which is prevalent in virtually all school districts across the country, the average age of a school now in the U.S. is 40 years old. And so when you hit those kind of ages, you have roof leaks, you've got upgrades that need to be done to keep the learning environment safe and something that's attractive for students to want to go to. And so those are chronically behind schedule because they're big projects and require tax revenues and things like that to support them, which have been very favorably supported by parents and municipalities and states for many years. And that's going to continue because we need parents and schools need to be in good repair for folks to be able to learn in. And so that's just a demand driver that we're going to see for many years ahead.
Great.
Less than a minute to go. Would love to spend more time, and we certainly look forward to the opportunity to do so. The balance sheet is very strong, obviously, including the breakup fee that you collected from WillScot. You mentioned priorities for capital allocation. Just talk about kind of target leverage range and M&A. What areas are you most focused on, either from a product or geographic perspective? What multiples and criteria look like? And I pass it to you for any closing remarks. Thank you again.
Yeah, I can comment. Leverage, we're comfortable in the two to low twos. Loan covenants capped at 2.75. If we have a strategic reason to go above that, I think our lenders would be supportive. When looking at M&A, we're very cash-on-cash return focused.
We do a lot of analytic work when we compare doing things organically with using acquisition as a tool and compare and contrast. There are pros and cons to really doing it either way, but very disciplined. We don't really focus on the multiple as much because really it depends on the quality of the fleet you're buying, the age of the fleet, how many years of rent you're going to generate from the assets you buy, and similarly, the quality of the customer base. Is it a customer base that fits well with our strategic direction? But those are all things we've really developed capabilities now to be much more efficient at making those kinds of evaluations, and I think the M&A work that we've done, we're very pleased with. As we noted earlier, we've done a lot of organic investment over many years.
I think we know how to do that. And then M&A gives us another way to play.
Perfect. We're about a minute over. Joe, Keith, thank you very much for taking the time. If we can help follow up at all, please let us know. And look forward to hearing more soon. Have a great afternoon.
Thank you very much.
Thank you, Dan.